


25¢ for a soul.

by Hobbes_ Cat (Wolf_Sabretooth)



Category: Futurama
Genre: Angst, Death, Hatred, Love, M/M, Realisation, Suicide, Trauma, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 15:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20707949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_Sabretooth/pseuds/Hobbes_%20Cat
Summary: There was another human, before Fry.





	25¢ for a soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a theory I told GenteiJaken about.

* * *

Five years ago. But, a robot never forgets.

His soft brown hair, infectious smile. The love and light that radiated from him. The devious grin that grew on his face when they'd hatch a plan. His gentle, _'I love you'_s. He was the only human Bender had met that could hack all of his coding to pieces with a single glance; melt his circuits with one laugh. As a young bot, he'd do his shifts at the girder plant, then sprint back to their apartment, and wait for his human to get home, like an obedient lap dog. He was a different robot when he was with him. It was a different world, with him.

Years passed, and things began to change. His human worked longer hours, and his hair started going grey. When cuddled up in bed together, Bender would tease him by fiddling with the strands, and his human would growl softly and bat him away with a smirk. Then, his human started reacting to him less. He'd gaze away into space and Bender would feel fearful at the nothingness in his eyes. The eyes that used to sparkle.

In time, Bender found out from his human's friends that he'd been abused at work by his boss - forced to work longer hours with docked pay. Bless his fragile meatbag heart, he'd said nothing. Didn't want his robot to worry... Bender decided to buy a bunch of flowers for his human; he couldn't smell them, but the store owner assured him that they were lovely, roses. He walked home, fiddling with his stunted metal fingers, unsure of how to broach the subject that he knew.

His human wasn't home, but Bender was used to that. Sometimes it was hours before his human got home. It never used to be that long.

Bender put the flowers in a vase, and sat down to wait.

And wait.

_And wait._

His internal clock informed him it was midnight, when the home phone rang. He extended a metal arm to grab it, wrenching it back to his head in a swift fervour. 

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end wasn't his human. It was the police.

His human would not be coming home. Not now, not ever.

Months passed, and when Bender found out he was bending the girders used to put together the very machine that had murdered his lover, it was too much.

His human had wanted death, and Bender had known nothing...done, nothing.

He couldn't fix it. Humans didn't have back up drives. They were useless, pathetic slabs of meat, oh-so-breakable and impossible to reassemble. 

He developed a hatred towards humans. They had hurt his lover, driven him to do what he had done. They had hurt them both, hurt him. They were the reason that he was alone. He wanted to kill them all in his grief, so that they'd never hurt him again.

Stuck in a line to die, he figured it would be poetic to go the same way as his soulmate, surrounded by these piggish freaks, his footcup stomped impatiently on the ground. He just wanted to die. _Was that too damn much to ask?_

Then, with the audacity that only a world out to get him would have, the human in front of him dared to turn around.

"Wow, a real life robot! Or is that some kind of cheesy Halloween costume?"

Bender narrowed his eyes and gritted his fibreglass teeth, resisting the urge to punch this upstart punk in the face. He didn't have time for humans anymore. 

"_Bite_ my shiny metal _ass_."

His lover used to place a gentle hand on his shoulder, murmuring, _'be nice'_, by his head when he got angsty or insulting, but now his human wasn't there anymore. Bender's cogs ground to a halt painfully, his coolant dumping its contents aggressively onto his insides, as he remembered this earth shattering fact. He was _gone_.

This human, a ginger, frowned and glanced round at Bender's backside.

"Doesn't look so shiny to me."

Heaven help him, he was going to murder this prick, preferably as brutally as possible. _Kill all humans_, just get rid of the lot of them.

"Shiner than _yours_, meatbag." He spat back, moodily.

Internally he was shrieking, _'just hurry up and let me die already!'_

The human backed off, perturbed, and turned back to the queue. Bender found himself holding back tears when he saw the 25¢ charge on the side of the death box. 

_'Honey, do you have any spare change?'_, his human would yell through the apartment. Bender would twist his head back, armed with a cheeky retort. _'Yeah, maybe in my ass, wanna check?!'_ His human would laugh. _'Shut up!'_

25¢ to leave this world and take his own life. Is that what a soul was worth in this day and age? Maybe. Bender didn't have one...not anymore.

His focus came back to the human in front of him, who was idiotically pressing the red button to start, looking confused when nothing happened. He ground his teeth again, and stomped up to the monkey-brain, sidling aside to stand in the booth with him. 

"Listen, buddy, I'm in a hurry here. Let's try for a twofer."

He brought out the quarter tied to his forefinger and chucked it into the coin slot.

_His human grinned evilly at him, pulling on his balaclava. 'Reckon they'll let us both break in? Let's try for a twofer.'_

His human had taught him the coin trick. A devious con to the core; a human after his own metal heart. Well, he had it now...wherever he was.

The ginger in the booth stared dumbly at him, as he flicked the coin back out again. Bender wheezed one last chuckle; fuck the capitalist pigs. They'd have to die before they got _his_ money.

**Please select your mode of death.**

The words grew into a mumbled haze, as Bender wondered with agony which option his lover had chosen. Had he died in this very booth? He felt sick at the thought of his human being hacked to pieces in one of these cold machines, that he had unwittingly built with his own cold, robot hands. The thought of standing amongst his swilling innards made his metal crawl.

He scowled deeply as the ginger knocked him out of his thoughts.

"Hi, yeah I'd like to place a collect call?"

Great. Now this jerk was even gonna steal his last decision in this world. Oh well. Not that he gave a fuck about anything anymore anyways.

**You have selected slow and horrible.**

He turned to the meatbag beside him, speaking dryly. "Great choice."

The machine finally unveiled its weapons, and the robot felt a jolt of elation that this was it, he was finally going to be free of all this grief and guilt. No more refilling his tear ducts every hour. No more empty cold bed. No more staving off the drink until he shut down night after night just to sleep. No more bending girders to kill more miserable meatbags.

He threw his arms up in the air, overcome with the oh-so-close taste of freedom. "Bring it on, baby!"

The human next to him gave a deafening shriek, but nothing was happening. The robot screeched inwardly in frustration. "Come on, _come on, just kill me already!_" As an after thought, he figured he may as well introduce himself to the human whose guts were about to be spliced and thrown all over him. He lifted up a claw. "By the way, my name's Bender."

To his surprise, the human grabbed him forcibly by the shoulders, yelling, "_Help!_ What's happening?!"

_Well, you're committing suicide, buddy. Didn't you read the sign on the booth? Moron._

Then, in a heartbeat, the ginger had thrown his body against Bender's, forcing him back against the wall, and out of harm's way.

Shock was his first thought.

Then...realisation, as he watched the horrific implements of murder hacking viciously at thin air

He was _protecting_ him.

This human had just saved his life.

_'So, what, you're a human, and you wanna be friends with me, a robot? Buddy, I just bend girders, there's nothing special about that.' His human had turned to him, flashing a steel-melting smile over his leather clad shoulder. 'Maybe not your job, but there's certainly something very special about you. I think we should become partners in crime.' 'Partners in crime?' 'Yeah, Rodríguez. You watch my back, I'll watch yours.' His human had pulled out a switchblade and pricked his palm without hesitation, holding it out to him. The blood had glistened in the moonlight. 'How about it?' Bender had shrugged, then taken the blade and stabbed his metal palm in return, pulling out a few oil splattered wires. 'Sure...' They clasped hands, and a jolt of electricity had gone through him, that had nothing to do with his exposed wires._

That same kind of electricity was pounding through his casing now, shaking him with the intensity of this new human's aggressively pounding heart pressed hard against him.

Goddam you, universe. 

_Kill all humans, but one._

_'Partners in crime, forever and ever.' Bender had grinned. 'I'll always have your back.' 'And I, yours.'_

_ **'You wanna be friends with me?' 'Well, yeah, I always wanted a robot for a best friend.'** _

Here we go again.


End file.
